A SECOND CHANCE MATE FOR THE POWERFUL ALPHA

A cool chick seduces a kinky nerd, and loves it.

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"Come on in," I yelled as my studio door gave that last creak it always gives rolling open. Then I dropped the door remote and used another one to turn down the Iggy Pop blasting through the studio. I didn't bother standing up from my worktable - it was a critical moment with the severed arm that had been giving me fits all morning.

The morning sun winked at me through the roll-up door, and I glanced over just long enough to see a tall, thin silhouette eclipsing it. It was him, with what looked like a travel bag balanced on one shoulder - an unusually long, stiff travel bag. "Anywhere I can set this down?"

I nodded at the other table. "I cleared that one over there for you. Hey, give me a minute, I'm just finishing something up."

"I'm at your mercy."

He really was. This guy had been emailing me for weeks, wanting to know if I could help him with a project that was outside my 'normal' scope of work. I don't usually do repairs; my business is making bodies intended for destruction. I'm a practical effects artist, specialized in realistic body parts for the movie industry. The arm in front of me, for example, needed to be smashed in a car door. But this director didn't just want a severed limb to be flashed on screen and glossed over with camera tricks. He wanted a close-up: the arm being smashed, the skin bulging and splitting before the audience hears the bone snap.

"Does anyone ever tell you that you look like - "

"Sarah Connor, Terminator Two? Only once or twice a day. It's the ponytail and tank top." I stayed focused on the tubular plastic artery I was finessing into the flesh of the silicone arm.

"Hmmm, yes, well...I was thinking arms and lips."

I paused and tried to suppress a grin, silently thanking Todd for showing me how to tone my arms without building up bulk. That had been one benefit of dating a personal trainer, the only other being mind-blowing sex that kept foiling my resolve to break up with that ass-wipe and stay away. Sex is kind of a weakness of mine, but this time it had been 72 days since I caved and gave in to Todd.

"Lisa," I said, standing and wiping my hand on paint-splattered khakis. "But you knew that."

"Yes. And you know I'm Darren," he answered, taking my outstretched hand to shake it. He was younger than I imagined, in his late twenties, which made him about a decade younger than me. "Would I recognize any of your work?" He asked, making a visual sweep of my studio.

"Did you see 'Slither'?"

He looked at me blankly, shaking his head. Probably not his genre. He looks more like a sci-fi guy than a horror guy.

"It was uncredited apprentice stuff, but I kind of learned my chops on that one. 'Lawn Zombies' was my first big break." I get tired of namedropping about my work and was much more curious about what was in the bag. "Mind if I have a look?" I asked, stepping toward the table.

"Um, no, no, let me do that." He stepped between me and the bag, "And uh, Lisa? I don't mean to be rude, but could you wash your hands first? I take really special care of Claire."

Yeah, by fucking her so hard you break her back? I thought to myself, but I backed away and said, "Okay, sure."

"I'm sorry, it's just that...well, she was really expensive and...like I said in the email, I need to get another year out of her, at least."

"How much was she?"

"Base price, four grand. But that was without any of the upgrades. I put almost five thousand into her all together."

I approached the table again, drying my hands with a towel, and could see that he had the bag unzipped. But it was actually him I was studying. I had seen a documentary about men who had sex dolls, and it was pretty obvious to see why the guys in the video needed one. Most of them looked like they couldn't land a real chick if they wanted too, but Darren wasn't half bad. Definitely skinny and super nerdy, but he wasn't bad.

"It was my graduation present to myself," he explained. "An investment, so I could focus on school."

"Yeah?"

Darren didn't seem to need much prompting to spill the beans. A talker. A talker with a story to tell. "Yes, well, I had a tough time in my undergrad studies. Not with school, but with girlfriend drama. Between the kick of falling in love, the hot and cold of the relationships, then the horrific breakups...I had to drop classes twice, and it really messed me up. Relationships are distracting. So I made a commitment to not date at all until I finish my PhD."

"Why not just find a fuck-buddy? No commitment."

Darren shrugged. "I'm not very good at that. If I like the sex, I tend to fall in love."

"Yeah, that's a problem. Well, I admire your fortitude, Darren."

I hoped he didn't think I was mocking him. I actually understood how distracting sex could be and wished I had his level of commitment. Besides, I own a few sex toys myself. Granted they all cost under a hundred bucks and easily fit in my purse. But what would it be like to have that sex toy attached to a body? To feel the weight on top of me, to have something to wrap my legs around. Uh-oh, getting off-track here. I put my focus back on the task at hand.

He had the bag unzipped, and I could see his life-sized doll. "Would you help me lift her out? I can usually do it myself, but with her broken back, I want to be careful."

"How much does she weigh?"

"Sixty-five pounds."

"Huh, not very life-like," I argued. "I weigh almost twice that."

"Yeah, but it's dead weight, you'll see. Plus, Claire is only five foot. You're a little taller."

"Well, they definitely put a substantial amount of that weight into her boobs. Jeez, Claire! No need for a bra, huh Ms. Perky?"

Darren did not answer, which gave me the feeling I'd crossed some kind of line. I decided not to joke with Claire anymore and just help the poor guy fix his sex doll. He lifted her under the shoulders while I took her ankles, and together we lifted her out of the bag and onto the table. I was impressed with the feel of her. I hadn't expected her skin to be so soft. On a real person's ankles, you'd feel different amounts of give for skin and for tendons and muscle or fat, plus the solid bone of the ankle knobs and the shin. With Claire it was all a uniform gentle squishiness concealing the support inside. I couldn't feel the skeletal framework that provided structure to her form, but Darren had told me in email that it was PVC pipe covered by silicone and that he had broken the one in her back. Of course, in my industry I am used to fake looking real, so her face didn't really surprise me, but the overall attention to detail at making her 'feel' real was impressive. "Did you dress her, or did the clothes come with her?"

"I bought her this outfit and a few others," Darren answered.

"I like the knee socks."